


It's Not Enough to Say

by waltzmatildah



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Multi, Pre-Series, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-08 00:16:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series AU. Meredith, already in an established ‘arrangement’ with Alex, meets Addison in a bar the week before she starts her new job at Seattle Grace. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>“So…” Addison echoes, before flipping the wedge of lemon from the top of her tequila and downing the shot on its own with a grimace that still manages to look nothing but composed. “That was probably a topic we could have discussed before today.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Enough to Say

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nails9](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nails9).



Meredith sits, hooks the low heels of her boots on the rung of the bar stool and slides, loose-limbed, out of her coat. Lets it fall into the space behind her as she leans back and shakes out her hair. The bartender looks up from where he’s polishing glasses and raises an eyebrow lazily in her direction in lieu of a more conventional greeting. Meredith nods once with a wry grin, and when he reaches for the bottle of tequila on the second shelf, the three shots he lines up are testament to the frequency with which they have this exact conversation.

He slides the glasses into place in front of her, lays a thin wedge of lemon across the top of each before reaching below the bar for a salt shaker.

Meredith looks at her watch and then towards the door. Calculates whether she’d get away with downing her shot early and ordering a re-fill before…

But the heavy door pushes inwards then, as though choreographed perfectly to abort her plans, and Addison takes several steps inside the bar before pausing a moment to make eye-contact at the same time she’s carefully folding her coat over her arm and unwrapping the scarf she’s got twirled around her neck.

Meredith turns back towards the line of shots with sudden determination, catches the wide grin of the bartender as he moves past her with deliberate swagger and a slow nod.

_Asshole._

Though that’s what she gets for daring to trust him with her screw ups in the first place, she guesses. A hastily exchanged and increasingly panicked series of text messages back and forth between the two of them too many hours ago now to properly count.

 

 

 

She waits until Addison’s settled on the stool to her left before using the back of her hand to slide one of the shots a few inches across.

“So…” she starts. Can’t quite bring herself to finish…

“ _So…_ ” Addison echoes, before flipping the wedge of lemon from the top of her tequila and downing the liquid on its own with a grimace that still manages to look nothing but composed. “That was probably a topic we could have discussed before today.”

The bartender snorts. It’s unattractive and obnoxious and Alex Karev to a freaking tee.

_Asshole._

“To be fair to all parties involved,” he adds with a shrug and a flourished re-fill of Addison’s glass. “It’s not like having actual, verbal discussions has exactly been high on your list of priorities since…” 

He trails off with the addition of a lewd gesture that has Meredith flinching because, Addison. _Addison._ But also, _Alex_. And Addison doesn’t appear to even register the movements, let alone find them offensive, and so she adds her own punctuation to the stilted exchange by downing her tequila shot with practiced ease and wedging the lemon firmly between her teeth with an exaggerated eye roll.

 

 

 

“So you didn’t think I’d be interested in knowing that you’re a surgical intern?” Addison asks, and there’s an undercurrent of defensiveness to the words, even though Meredith wants to point out it’s not like _she_ ever took a moment to detail _her own_ well established career path.

Not on their first night, over a week ago now, when Addison, little more than a stranger at that point, pursed her red, red lips in the mirror at the same moment Meredith exited the bathroom stall, and had frozen then, mid-lipstick application, to stare back at her via the watermarked glass.

“Uh, hi,” Meredith had said at the time, her usual blend of dismissive eloquence.

Addison had just raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow and slowly pressed her lips back together smoothly.

The matter of their respective professions hadn’t really seemed important, an hour or so and several long-stemmed glasses of champagne later, when Meredith moved to test the waters with her fingers threaded through curls of auburn hair.

And it certainly hadn’t seemed important last night, when Alex was busy locking up the front door or counting change, or whatever the hell it was he was doing when Addison’s only somewhat tentative by now fingertips pushed their way between Meredith’s thighs right there against the bar.

“I knew,” Alex offers with a shrug, ever helpful.

And Meredith contemplates tossing the third shot of tequila in his face.

“Well, it was really useful that _you knew_ when all the new interns were being assigned yesterday morning before rounds and…” Addison starts but trails off, interrupted by a snort of barked laughter that Meredith can no longer contain.

She wraps the palm of one hand over her mouth to stop the sound but her descent into hysteria has been building for the better part of thirty six hours. There’s to be no stopping it now.

 

 

 

Alex steers the both of them towards his car. Meredith hears it unlock with a mechanical beep and then lets herself be folded awkwardly into the backseat. She’s more tired than drunk, the booze and the lack of sleep combining for the perfect storm that has her slow blinking and unable to hold up her third of the conversation. She drifts off as the steady rumble of low voices expand to fill the endless spaces inside her, shuffling and re-settling until they’re both _comfortable_ and _comforting_.

It is an unfamiliar sensation she thinks she could probably get used to.

Knows that she _shouldn’t_ in the very same exhale.

 

 

 

There’s a bottle of vodka in the freezer, behind the ice trays and some frozen vegetables Meredith thinks her mother probably bought on a whim a decade ago. She’s reaching for it when she hears movement, bare feet padding across the kitchen tile.

“So, you two live together?”

There’s more weight to the words than Addison would like to reveal, Meredith knows that instinctively.

She shrugs, “Yeah.”

She’d napped in the car and feels more awake now than she has for days.

“Interesting,” says Addison. Meredith doesn’t really think it is but she stays quiet, uses the silence to fill three shot glasses to half-way; her one concession to her new position as a professional adult with actual responsibilities.

“He’s a med student, you know…” It’s not so much a question as a fierce statement of fact. 

Her declaration has the desired effect.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s where we first met, at med. school.” She’s on the attack and she hates that he has this power over her still, that she can be sucked into his fights so completely when he’s not even in the same freaking room.

She’ll defend him to the death, it is the one sure thing she knows about herself these days

Addison’s mouth falls open, her chest expands, like she’s on the verge of a reply. Meredith clocks the moment she changes her mind. Her expression drops, slack, and she steps forward instead. An odd mix of tentative and yet also obnoxiously confident that Meredith’s come to realise in the last week is most definitely Addison’s default setting. 

But two can play at that game.

Or three, if the occasion calls for it.

Which this one just might.

 

 

 

In the pitch black, Meredith bounces her fingertips over bare skin to tell them apart. Uses her sense of smell and the different cadence of their respective breathing rates to separate one from the other. The way Alex likes to bury his face into the hair at the back of her neck, while Addison prefers lapping her tongue over Meredith’s exposed nipples, hard and insistent until her back arches, eager. She keeps her eyes pulled shut and responds to them both in turn.

Relishes the attention and tries not to read too much into the fact that she is their common denominator.

This is new ground they’re treading. And she can already taste the ash of the inevitable crash and burn that’s coming.

 

 

 

Alex falls asleep twisted into her sheets, one arm off the side of the bed, the backs of his fingers almost brushing the floor.

Meredith returns from the bathroom and stands in the doorway a moment, silent, watching.

Addison is sitting up, her shoulder blades against the headboard, knees bent, spread, and her fingers between her legs. She slows the movements she’s making when she sees Meredith. Slows, but doesn’t stop.

Meredith grins, dips her head to the side.

Keeps watching.

Waits.

And waits.

_Until…_

Addison’s head tilts back slightly, her eyes close as her breath hums a path between her lips.

Meredith moves then, crawls up the length of the bed slowly, until she close enough to touch, until she’s close enough to replace Addison’s fingers with her own tongue. 

She doesn’t breathe, _can’t_ breathe, _doesn’t want to breathe…_ , pushes her own fingers inside herself and brings them both to the same point.

Holds it.

Holds it as Addison’s groan deepens and her hips buck impatiently.

And then holds it a beat more.

 

 

 

Finishes...

 

 

 

In the calm that follows, Alex is still asleep, and the thought makes Meredith want to giggle.

She wants to smoke a cigarette, she wants to dance. She wants to scream into her pillow until she’s empty and turning blue.

She drops her head onto Addison’s thigh instead, their skin sticking together in a way that should be uncomfortable but absolutely isn’t. She trails the pad of her pointer finger down the length of Addison’s calf, almost to her ankle, as far as she can reach without moving.

She never wants to move again.

“So…”

Addison’s voice cuts through the otherwise silence.

“Are you and he…?”

Meredith’s breath catches as she contemplates her options. A lie? The truth? She’s not sure she even knows which is which at this point.

“Kind of,” she says in the end, settles on an in-between that feels safest in the moment. “It’s complicated,” she continues, even though she’s not sure she needs to, “I mean, he’s Alex and… and…”

“ _And it’s complicated,_ ” Addison echoes, a sigh filled with sound. “Isn’t it always…”

Addison’s fingers work their way through Meredith’s hair. She imagines the movements are absent, Addison’s thoughts a million miles away and her muscles moving on nothing but instinct, but Meredith’s not convinced Addison’s ever done _anything_ ‘absently’ and so she can’t quite conjure up an image that feels accurate. 

And it’s already falling apart at the seams.

 

 

 

“We can’t do this again, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.” Meredith swallows. “Yeah, I know.”

 

 

 

Addison leaves not long after that. Pulls herself back together with what looks like practiced purpose as Alex shifts in his sleep but doesn’t wake and Meredith sits, knees pulled to her chest, and watches her go.

 

 

 

In the harsh morning light that follows, Meredith finds the half-shots of vodka she’d poured hours before still sitting right where she’d left them.

And if she’s honest, she has to admit to the fleeting thought of ‘breakfast’ before she caves and up-ends the glasses in the sink, one by one by one.

Punctuates the end of something that never really began.


End file.
